The Sharks dug deep to record a come-from-behind, 25-23 victory over Western Province at Newlands, in Saturday’s Round 1 Currie Cup clash. While the team played poorly in many areas (which can only partly be blamed on the weather), the win was nevertheless a great result. Let’s have a look at the individual performances.

1) Dale Chadwick: Appeared to struggle at scrum-time and wasn’t particularly prominent in other areas of the game either. Will improve with more game time. 6/10
2) Craig Burden: Line outs were reasonable under the circumstances, but won’t be happy with the scrum-work. A terrier in the loose, as always and you can’t argue with the two great tries he scored. 8/10.
3) Wiehahn Herbst: Also really struggled to get the required hit and we didn’t see very many of his trademark big hits. Perhaps still feeling the effects of all that globe-trotting! 6/10
4) Steven Sykes: Had a pretty robust game in the second row and was good on his own ball in the line out. 7/10
5) Jandre Marais: His first start for the Sharks in nearly four months and looked a little rusty. Still put in a few nice runs, though and looks ready to make his mark on the Currie Cup. 6/10
6) Jacques Botes: Will feel that his yellow card really let the team down, after doing some great work – particularly on defence – up to that point. 5/10
7) Jean Deysel: Gave the team great go-forward and did very well in his first outing as captain, to keep the heads up when things were going wrong. 7/10
8) Tera Mtembu: Got through a huge amount of work on defence. Appeared to struggle a little with the soapy ball, but played reasonably well in conditions hardly suited to his natural game. 6/10

9) Cobus Reinach: A superb first start for the nippy scrumhalf, whose service was sound and who kept the opposition guessing all night long with some lovely darts around the fringes. Big defence too. 8/10
10) Riaan Viljoen: Fluffled one or two kicks, but for the most part, showed his value in dictating the game with his huge boot. Produced a few match-turning moments, with the chip to set up the first try – and the winning drop goal – perhaps the two most significant. 8/10
11) Sbu’ra Sithole: Forced to put in some big pressure tackles on his opposite number, who enjoyed so much more ball than he did. It wasn’t a night for the Sharks outside backs and poor Sbu’ra had no opportunities at all to show his pace and skill with ball in hand. 6/10
12) Meyer Bosman: Had a busy and effective night in midfield, keeping the Province centres honest with important tackles. Played a huge role in getting Jordaan away for the opening try too. 6/10
13) Paul Jordaan: What a find this kid is – with speed and skill that we’ve not seen in the Sharks midfield in far too long. His try was a thing of beauty and we really hope that his seemingly chronic hamstring problem can be properly dealt with, lest he spend any ore time on the sidelines. 7/10
14) Odwa Ndungane: Played the role of elder statesmen in the back three and was a great calming influence on the two rookies alongside him. Took some lovely high balls and was huge on defence, even though running opportunities were scarce. 7/10
15) Gouws Prinsloo: Gouws did what he was asked to do; fielding the high ball and making his tackles, but had no opportunities to show us any of the other weapons in his arsenal. 6/10

16) Monde Hadebe: A useful 15 minutes during which his defensive abilities were tested and not found wanting. 6/10
17) Julian Redelinghuys: Appeared to hold up his end well when he came on and will quickly adjust to Currie Cup rugby after spending most of the year on the sidelines. 6/10
18) Peet Marais: Tackled well and generally did a good job when asked to deputise for his older brother. 6/10
19) Francois Kleinhans: Turned Province time and again with huge hits. This is a player to look out for, all right! 7/10
20) Conrad Hoffmann: Unused
21) Marius Joubert: Did a reasonable job on defence (although tended to tackle a bit high) but added little else when asked to step in for Jordaan. 5/10
22) Rosco Speckman: Unused

Fair ratings…I was impressed with the handling overall considering the conditions.

Nice variations by tjop and good game by Reinach.

Comment 2, posted at 13.08.12 08:18:58 by Pokkel

Though Meyer Bosman deserved a 7

Cobus was gr8 – played really well behind a pack going backwards at a rate of knots

Our tight five needs to gel more and will need to fire sooner or later if we wat to stay in contention for this competition. We pipped WP this weekend mainly due to the weather – they were forced into a kicking game and lost.

Our backline looks exciting even with Jobert and Bosman – there is enough creativity around to create problems

Comment 3, posted at 13.08.12 08:26:01 by byron

We’re in desperate need of a more dynamic loose head….and a less dynamic hooker

Burden is great in the loose, but neglects to do anything remotely resembling the work of a hooker very well.

And can’t wait to see Whitehead and Jordaan forging the best centre combination in the history of SA rugby.

Comment 4, posted at 13.08.12 09:28:03 by FireTheLooser

@FireTheLooser (Comment 4) : “And can’t wait to see Whitehead and Jordaan forging the best centre combination in the history of SA rugby.” not when no-passing fransie is entrenched firmly at the sharks

TH’s are normally forgiven for having a boeppens ’cause they’re there to anchor the scrum. Best conditioned th to my mind in SA (that is able to scrum) is Pat Cilliers.

But the modern day loose head needs mobility, Chadwick plays like a th, and scrums like an average lh – really ads nothing to the team dynamic. That was evident by the victories the SHarks suddenly managed when Beast returned for the S15.

Comment 8, posted at 13.08.12 12:38:04 by FireTheLooser

@Megatron (Comment 7) : How old is Crockett? How much has he achieved? And you can hardly compare the physical condition of the two. Crockett’s triangle is upside down.

1) Dale Chadwick: Appeared to struggle at scrum-time and wasn’t particularly prominent in other areas of the game either. Will improve with more game time. 6/10
12) Meyer Bosman: Had a busy and effective night in midfield, keeping the Province centres honest with important tackles. Played a huge role in getting Jordaan away for the opening try too. 6/10

According to your own text, Meyer had a good game (busy and effective), in fact nothing negative in the write up, while Dale had a poor game, with nothing positive in the write up, but somehow they bath get the same rating. Doesn’t make sense to me. To be honest there were many further inconsistencies besides these, like Botes having a good game other than the yellow card but gets a lower rating than Dale who by your own account had a poor game (by the way, same comment goes for Herbst as for Chadwick).

Comment 10, posted at 13.08.12 17:36:00 by Dancing Bear

I really thought Viljoen and Reinach were the masterpieces behind this victory. Burden doesn’t deserve an 8 for the game. Maybe for the second half, but besides the 2 tries he did next to nothing worth mentioning.

Comment 11, posted at 13.08.12 17:40:19 by TRF_Ezequiel

@TRF_Ezequiel (Comment 11) : just go re-read your last statement. How can scoring the two tries that turned the game from a sure loss into a win NOT be worthy of a high rating?

Chadwick has played no rugby at all since getting dumped for Beast almost 3 months back. I think it’s ok to cut the guy a little bit of slack. Bosman and Herbst have been playing consistently since then, so I expected more.

Did Herbst do any more than Dale in the game? No, not at all. Maybe Meyer deserves an extra point and with hindsight being perfect, perhaps he deserved 7.

I just don’t buy into the petty “give Chadwick a 3 because he plays with his socks down” school of thought that seems alarmingly prevalent here.

Comment 13, posted at 13.08.12 19:23:35 by robdylan

Sykes was ill disciplined on the night His high tackle in the dying seconds could have cost us 4-5 in my book

@robdylan (Comment 12) :
I guess there’s more to playing a good game than just having a good second half. Yes, he scored 2 tries which was brilliant but my opinion is that his overall performance doesn’t deserve a rating that high. It’s just my personal opinion though

Fail to drive a try scorer to the corner twice and giving them easy conversions

Comment 21, posted at 13.08.12 20:47:51 by TRF_Ezequiel

@Leviathan (Comment 18) : so we’ve worked out that two WP/Stormers losses in a row is where your tolerance level ends?

No need to delete your profile… just don’t come back if you don’t want to be here any more.

Comment 22, posted at 13.08.12 20:53:31 by robdylan

@robdylan (Comment 22) : Very well. Bye everyone. This is a great site and I hope it does well, but I think I’m going to stick with my own herd from now on. Cheers.

Comment 23, posted at 13.08.12 22:23:53 by Leviathan

@robdylan (Comment 13) : Whoa Rob, never said anything about Chadwick’s socks or him deserving a 3. My question was rather about consistency in the ratings. I understand your logic, I just don’t agree with it, but hey nothing wrong with that. Hope all is well with you and yours.

Comment 24, posted at 13.08.12 22:32:49 by Dancing Bear

Gents I cant watch the Currie Cup until the play-offs here in Aus… Tell me more about this Reinach???

I hear he has pace with his sniping runs, good D…how is his passing game and kicking??

Good start to the campaign. I believe we still have the depth to take this comp without the Boks. Go Sharks!!!

you must’ve been watching a different wyatt from the one who was running around scoring tries last year including the killer blow on the stormers last year @ newlands after a sbw offload to maitland who dished to the galloping prop to score.

wyatt was unlucky not to make the RWC squad, left out for veteran woodcock.

is dale’s boeppens bigger than say coenie’s?

Comment 26, posted at 14.08.12 04:46:44 by Megatron

@robdylan (Comment 13) : On the other hand are we now grading on a curve of some sort. The guy who hasn’t played rugby for a while gets a head start in the numbers? If you didn’t play well then you didn’t play well and the number should reflect that. There shouldn’t be a weighting in the numbers to reflect the amount of rugby you’ve played surely?

I’m interested to hear reasoning to justify that Chadwick played worse than any of the players (bar Bosman) who were given the same rating as him.

Comment 32, posted at 14.08.12 07:35:09 by robdylan

@Dunx (Comment 31) : the ref made a right pig’s ear of the scrum calls… the props and hooker were completely scoobied all game long and had no idea when the ref was ever going to get around to calling “engage”.

Comment 33, posted at 14.08.12 07:36:06 by robdylan

@robdylan (Comment 32) : I actually don’t have a major problem with Chadwick being given a 6 although I would personally have given him a 5, I am concerned with your comment 13 making it sound like you gave him a better rating because you are cutting him some slack.

The guy has had spare time on his hands for a few weeks and yet he has returned to rugby sporting a bigger belly than before. In my mind a committed professional would have come back slimmer and trimmer fully conditioned. Sort of like beast after his lay-off or John Smit after his lay-off way back.

I’m not going to get drawn into a discussion on your perceptions around Chadwick’s belly size, because I feel it’s neither fair nor relevant to do so.

My response to DB regarding why Bosman and Chadwick got the same ratings, despite the former getting only positive comments and the latter negative, was because I expected more of Bosman, hence giving him a lower score despite the positive comments. With the benefit of hindsight and stats, Bosman deserved a far higher score. I have conceded that point three times already.